


Crybaby

by cop_per



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cis Female Harry Styles, Crying, Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 23:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13914411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cop_per/pseuds/cop_per
Summary: Harry wants Louis to let his feelings out, but Louis is very stubborn and his fragile masculinity won't let him.





	Crybaby

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Crybaby" by Paloma Faith. It was pretty much the inspiration behind this. If you listen to it, you'll understand...

A collection of keys and various keychains from different cities was sloppily shuffled until one key was jammed into the lock. The heavy deadbolt turned and the door was pushed open by a figure falling ungracefully into the small house. A raspy voice slurred a curse as the wooden door thudded shut and the loose glass panel inserts shook noisily. A wave of tentative calm followed, punctuated by sluggish, shuffling footfalls and laboured breathing. There was a pause as Louis came to the bedroom, before he opened the door, like he could sense what waited for him on the other side.

Very slowly, he pushed open the bedroom door and found his wife sitting cross-legged in their bed, manicured hands picking at the quilt covering her bare legs. Her full lips were pulled in a taut line and she had a deep furrow between her brows. The moonlight cast a blue glow over the room, illuminating her delicate features and athletic build.

“Glad you made it home safe,” she said, not lifting her eyes from where they focused on her hands. Louis stood there dumbly for a few moments before moving to his side of the bed and plopping down. He tugged at his sneakers, throwing them at the base of the wall next to him.

“How was your night?” Harry asked while stealing glances at the man getting undressed next to her.

“Fine,” he grunted, struggling to get out of his tight jeans.

Silence settled over the couple as Louis continued to prepare for bed. Once he had stripped down to his boxers, he fell into bed, squirming under the covers. He turned his body away from Harry’s unmoving figure, partly to escape her unrelenting gaze and partly to save himself from her complaints about his alcohol-drenched breath. Forcing his breathing to steady, he waited for any indication that she was getting tired, that she would put off whatever this was until the sun came up. A few minutes passed and sleep was creeping up on Louis, dropping his eyelids and making his body heavy.

“Lou?” Harry’s voice was so soft, it barely reached Louis’s ears, but it did, and his eyes shot open in the dark. His heart pounded in his ears, deafening him to everything except the erratic thumping.

“Lou, are you sleeping?” she tried again.

Louis remained motionless. What could he say? He was a coward. He knew what this was about and he was not ready to face it. If he pretended to be asleep, he could buy himself a few more hours of pretending everything was okay.

Harry sighed heavily. “Gosh Louis. How long are we going to do this?” Louis felt her move to put her head in her hands. Convinced that he had failed to fool his wife, he prepared himself to turn and receive the full force of her anger. But he froze when he heard Harry sniffle.

“Oh baby, I wish you would just talk to me,” her voice, thick with tears, broke. A stifled sob wracked her body. “Please talk to me. I don’t know what I can do to help. I can see you hurting but I don’t know what to do. I can’t help you when you leave me to go drinking with your mates almost every night, staggering in here at all hours of the morning. And I don’t know if you know this or if you’re doing it on purpose, but it hurts me, Lou. It really fucking hurts that you don’t care enough to see how miserable I am.” She paused to catch her breath. She swiped her hands over her face and they came away slippery with tears. By this point, Louis’s chest was so tight he could barely breathe himself. He blinked away the tears welling up, refusing to succumb to his emotions. He felt her body shift again to lay down. She started moving toward him but hesitated.

 _Please hold me_ , Louis pleaded in his head. What felt like hours passed before Harry moved again. She slowly slid backwards to the edge of the bed and turned to get up before a hand gripped her wrist. She looked down at the pale hand with blunt nails, bitten down to the nubs, and trailed her eyes up the tattoo covered arm to her husband’s face. His bottom lip was trapped in his teeth and his normally blue eyes looked grey under the sheen of withheld tears. “Don’t leave, Harry, please” he choked out. “Stay with me.”

Confusion flashed across her face before being replaced with anger. “Were you awake this whole time?” she gritted out. She yanked her wrist out of Louis’s hold and swung her legs over the bed, getting to her feet and crossing the room to get as far away from her husband as she could in that moment. “You were just going to ignore me? Block me out like you’ve been doing the past four months?”

“Harry, I’m sorry.” Louis reached out for Harry but she shook her head.

“All you can say is ‘sorry’? What the hell!” She looked at Louis questioningly, shaking furiously. His eyes were as wide as saucers and his mouth hung open. “You know, that day was devastating for me too. God Louis, I lost my fucking baby! Our baby!” All the air rushed out of Louis’s lungs, like he had been punched in the stomach. And there it was, the topic they avoided at all costs.

Harry’s miscarriage four months ago was the last straw in their tumultuous journey to parenthood. For years they had been trying to conceive, trying natural home remedies designed to increase fertility, tracking Harry’s reproductive cycle to the minute, and going to various doctors and consultants for some explanation as to why they were still childless. They learned about Louis’s low sperm count, but were given hope with in vitro treatments. After three IVF cycles that just about broke the bank, Harry finally got pregnant. The couple were overjoyed but waited the appropriate three months when the chance of a miscarriage dropped significantly plus an extra month to be safe before telling anyone. Their mothers were so excited that they had begun suggesting baby names modelled after their own and buying little stuffed animals and clothes for the baby. It had seemed like, after so long, the universe was turning things in their favour.

That was until Harry woke up in the middle of the night with intense pains coming from her abdomen. It felt like she was being stabbed from different angles. She cried out to Louis, fearing the worst. He woke up, turned on a lamp, and found his wife lying in a pool of blood. They rushed to the hospital where they received the tragic news that changed their lives.

“And you left me, Louis. When I needed you most, you completely checked out. All you do is sleep, go to work, and go out with your mates. Hell, the only time we spend together is when you’re drunk and you want to get your dick wet. It’s like you won’t touch me otherwise.” Harry wrapped her arms around herself and curved her body away from her husband. “I know you blame me for what happened. And I just don’t understand why, if you find me so repulsive, you’re still here,” she said quietly, like she was running out of steam. She looked back at Louis tiredly and rolled her eyes at his unchanged expression. “Forget it. You’re drunk and this is fucking useless.” She grabbed a jacket off a chair near the door and made to leave but was stopped by Louis grabbing her around the waist, spinning her to face him, and clutching her to him in a crushing hug. “Let me go, Louis,” she struggled against him. He held her tighter, running one hand through her long wavy chocolate-coloured locks while the other continued to grip her waist. “Louis,” she tried again feebly.

“Harry, Hazza, please. I’m so sorry. Please don’t go.” Louis’s voice wobbled. Harry was a few inches taller than Louis but this was the first time he felt so small in her arms. He was muttering variations of “I’m sorry”, “Don’t leave”, and “I love you” over and over when she sighed and slowly wrapped her arms around him, cradling him to her. She pressed a kiss to his feathery caramel-coloured hair, causing him to squeeze her impossibly tighter. They stood like that until Harry’s legs felt numb and Louis pulled back a few inches. His face was wet but he quickly swiped the moisture away with his arm. He grabbed her face in both hands and forced her to look into his eyes. Her red-rimmed emerald eyes were breathtaking in the moonlight. “Harry, love, I can’t even put into words how much I feel like shit. I am your husband and I’m supposed to be your provider and your protector, but I’ve been too weak.”

“No, babe,” she said fiercely. “Never weak. You just had a ...unique way of dealing with things. It wasn’t good or pleasant or attractive or productive or healthy,” she rambled. Louis winced. “But that’s all over now, yeah? You’re going to start talking to me again? No more bottling up your feelings?” Harry chanced a smile but her face fell when Louis dropped his eyes.

He took her hands in his and swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I can promise you that something like this won’t happen again. I mean, this is how I cope with stuff. When my dad walked out on Mum, I was just a little kid. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but I remember feeling this enormous sense of responsibility, like I had to take care of her. And the girls, even though Mark was there by then. Pretty much my whole life I’ve been hearing I had to ‘man up’-“

Harry gave him a look reminding him of how much she thought that phrase sucked, pulling a chuckle from Louis.

“I know, love, but it’s something I’ve kept with me forever.” He blew air out of his lips and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have no idea how hard the past couple of years has been for me. Harry, I couldn’t give you a baby, not naturally at least. I know how much you wanted one, but I just wasn’t enough.” His bottom lip trembled.

“Aw Lou,” she tutted. She caressed his cheek, brushing a single tear away. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I can’t help but feel like it was!” Louis exclaimed. More tears rolled down his cheeks and Harry moved to wipe them up. “A-and then when you lost it.” He placed a shaky hand on Harry’s stomach. “A-and I couldn’t protect you o-or the baby. I let you down. I let you both down.” He dropped his head again and rubbed his nose, sniffling. “So, yeah, I pushed you away because it was easier than having to face you everyday and be reminded of my failure as a man. And obviously, that was a mistake, but it’s how I deal with things,” he said, shrugging.

“But it doesn’t have to be.” She lifted Louis’s head with one hand to look at him earnestly. She snaked the other hand around his slender waist, holding him to her. “That’s why I’m here, why I married you, so you wouldn’t have to suffer in silence. Louis, it’s okay for you to feel broken and beat down, because I’ll always be there to pick you back up and put you together again.” Harry pressed a soft kiss to Louis’s thin lips and was slightly disappointed when he didn’t reciprocate. He rested his forehead against her neck, brushing his nose against her exposed skin.

“Haz,” he breathed out. He didn’t have to say it but Harry heard him loud and clear. _I’m scared._

“Baby, it’s okay. We’re going to be okay,” she said while rubbing soothing circles on his back. She took a step back and bent down to pick up the jacket, which turned out to be one of Louis’s hoodies, that had long since fallen from her grasp. When she had uprighted herself again, Louis’s lips were quivering and he looked about two seconds from falling apart completely. He dropped his head again, shaking it, and a choked off sob punched out of him. He sniffled wetly. A cacophony of sounds threatened to burst out of Louis but he fought to keep them down. He was so preoccupied with maintaining his composure that he didn’t notice Harry throwing the jacket back on the chair and moving to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “C’mon, Lou. Let’s get back in bed.”

She ushered him slowly back to their bed and got in behind him. He quickly wound his arms around her waist, threw his leg over hers, and rested his head on her chest, resembling a baby koala. She wriggled her arms out of his grasp then proceeded to card her fingers through his hair while tracing light patterns on his arm. Harry revelled in the skin-to-skin contact, not realising until then how much she missed these intimate moments. However, there was a thought niggling in the back of her mind. She looked down at Louis’s half-naked body, his chest rising and falling slowly. Something was still troubling her.

“Lou,” she whispered in the darkness.

He hummed in response. She couldn't help the tiny smile playing at the corners of her mouth at the way Louis reflexively gripped her hips. It didn’t last long.

“Lou, darling, you know tonight was the first time I’ve seen you shed a tear since my miscarriage.” She held her breath in waiting for his response. He remained quiet. “And you know you can cry around me, right? I won’t think of you any different.”

“Harry,” he said, in a warning tone. However, the strain in his voice made it less effective. “Not now, please.”

“Then when, Louis?” Harry struggled to keep the frustration out of her voice. “I love you so much. A few tears won’t change that. You’re my everything, you know?” She murmured the last part into his hair and kissed his forehead. His face was considerably warmer than usual. Harry brushed his hair back from his face and kept pressing small kisses to his face and hair. “Louis?”

Hot tears dripped onto her chest in response. Louis shook in her arms, taking deep, tremorous breaths. He bit down on his lip so hard, he tasted faint traces of blood. Harry ran her fingers delicately over the scrunched up lines on Louis’s face, picking up tears along the way.

“Go on and cry, baby,” she reassured him. At that, the dam broke. Louis began to weep openly, no longer restricting the flow of tears from his eyes or snot from his nose. His sobs turned to wails and unintelligible ramblings. He struggled to catch his breath, gasping and coughing loudly.

Harry’s heart broke at the anguish her husband was in. To think he had spent years policing his feelings, not even secure enough with her to just relax, left a sharp stinging pain in her chest. She vowed to continuously encourage Louis to embrace his emotions. If he was worried about his masculinity, she would remind him that a real man shows his feelings. If he thought his current coping methods were satisfactory, she would remind him that tears can be healing. Louis had taken care of Harry for so long, supporting her financially, physically, and emotionally. It was time for Harry to be Louis’s saviour, even if he didn’t know he needed one.

Harry rested her head on Louis’s, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply. She stroked up and down her husband’s back soothingly. “Let it all out, sweet darling.”


End file.
